The Insider: witnessing the Nancy Dell'Olio effect...

MONDAY, JULY 14

The Guardian newspaper has today announced I am the 100th most powerful person in the British media. Given that GQ once declared me the seventh most powerful man in Britain, this is a bit of a comedown, but I’ll take it.

Although it’s very galling to see Ant and Dec creeping in at number 99, even more galling to see Simon Cowell at number 14, and downright nauseating to see Jeremy Clarkson at number 58.

Talking of Clarkson, I caught the train up to London today with my middle son Stanley, 11, and told him to buy a magazine at the station.

He came back, grinning from ear to ear, with the new issue of Top Gear magazine. ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

‘Look at the front cover,’ he replied, sniggering loudly.

I did as requested, and saw a banner headline across the top: ‘Why I want to hit Piers Morgan in the head with a shovel – see Clarkson, page 40.’

‘Yes, son, he tried to do that once with his fists, but it was like being hit on the head by a slimy piece of cod.’

As Stanley pondered this statement, I grabbed his magazine to find out the answer to the question posed on the cover.

‘We are all aware there is a chemistry between people,’ writes Clarkson. ‘You meet someone, and before they’ve even drawn breath to speak, you know you hate every fibre of their being, and would like to hit them in the head with a shovel. Certainly, I felt this way when I first met Piers Morgan.’

Right, that’s it.

Last warning, you pot-bellied lump of gnarled, denim-clad lard.

LAST. WARNING.

TUESDAY, JULY 15

Never has the old maxim ‘being in the right place at the right time’ been truer than this morning. As those sensational paparazzi photos of Dame Helen Mirren in her red bikini exploded across the world’s media, guess where I was?

Yep, secretly ensconced (alone) in a very romantic London hotel bedroom for an hour-and-a-half with Dame Helen. I can’t tell you why yet, but I can tell you that her opening words to me were: ‘I’m really not sure I should be in my bedroom with you, Piers.’

Halfway through, she put her glasses back on and said: ‘I want to be able to see you while you’re putting me through this…’

And by the end of our time she laid back, sipped a large cappuccino and sighed: ‘Oh, I so enjoyed that.’

WEDNESDAY JULY 16

My membership of the social networking website Facebook is now getting slightly out of hand, with more than 30 different groups paying tribute to me.

Well, ‘tribute’ may not be quite the right word, judging by some of them. Here is a brief selection of the groups you can currently join:

Largest group: ‘I f***ing hate Piers Morgan.’

Second largest: ‘I f***ing love Piers Morgan.’

My favourite: ‘Piers Morgan is both funnier and cleverer than Jeremy Clarkson.’

My least favourite: ‘Piers Morgan should be taken into the street and shot.’

Most ambiguous: ‘Piers Morgan is the mutt’s nuts.’

Most woundingly worded: ‘I hate Piers Morgan almost as much as Jeremy Kyle.’

Double-edged sword: ‘I used to think Piers Morgan was a prat but I’ve changed my mind.’ Closely followed by: ‘I like Piers Morgan and I’m not afraid to say it.’

The aren’t-you-slightly-overdoing-it-group-given-Mugabe-is-still-alive: ‘There isn’t a single person more vile than Piers Morgan.’

Most unlikely to succeed: ‘Piers Morgan for Prime Minister.’

THURSDAY, JULY 17

To my girlfriend Celia’s book launch. I marched confidently to the door of the splendid new basement club at Soho House, only to be stopped dead in my tracks.

‘Name?’

God, the indignity.

‘Piers Morgan.’

Not a flicker of recognition on the young lady’s face as she checked her guest list.

‘I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to be on the list.’

I grimaced.

‘But I helped draw up the list.’

Pause. A slow shake of the head.

‘Celia is my… other half…?’

A small crowd of drinkers nearby began to chuckle at my humiliation. Eventually, another club official arrived to rescue me from social hell, and I was permitted to enter. My pain only eased when Sarah Brown arrived in a slight fluster later on, having suffered the same non-recognition shame at the door.

But to be fair, the Prime Minister’s wife had come with her brother Sean Macaulay – an old journalist friend whose new close-shaven haircut and beard make him look like an escapee from Prison Break.

It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if Nancy Dell’Olio had not been greeted like the Queen of Sheba and ushered straight inside.

Sarah, who was in marvellously good cheer given the ferocious – and, in my opinion, grotesquely unfair – media kicking being administered to her husband every day, took her snub in her usual dignified and highly amused manner.

Can you imagine the scene that would have erupted if it had been Cherie left standing on the doorstep? It would have made Baghdad look like Shoreham-by-Sea.

As the evening wore on, Nancy bewitched two handsome young City boys into a cosy corner, and began to dazzle them with her sultry Italian charms.

‘Hang on a second!’ yelped TV newsgirls Emily Maitlis and Andrea Catherwood simultaneously, when I pointed out this smouldering vignette:

‘Those are our husbands!’

SATURDAY, JULY 19

My dazzling batting performances in the East Sussex Cricket League continued today against a team of rather cocky youngsters from the village of Pett.

‘Oh look, no helmet,’ exclaimed one of them, loudly, as I arrived at the crease. ‘Let’s see if we can’t re-arrange his TV face for him lads…’

They never got a chance, as I was quickly out for one run – moving my season average down from six to four.

But I was cheered by a text from England skipper Michael Vaughan.

‘You might get a game in the next test the way we pick them,’ he joked.

SUNDAY, JULY 20

Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentice sidekick Nick Hewer is on some road trip from the UK to Mongolia in his battered old Renault, and has just reached the Russian border.

‘He is a bit apprehensive,’ Sir Alan told me today, ‘but fortunately I was dining tonight in a Spanish restaurant with a load of boozing Russians, so I’ve been able to help Nick out with some friendly phrases to give the local police or military if he gets into trouble.’

I laughed, knowingly.

‘Like?’

‘Like, “Are you gay?” and, “Would you kiss me if I gave you 100 roubles?”’